Ribbon
by Hawkie
Summary: WA1 slash ACF. Jack muses on his past. Prologue T for later material. !Contains spoilers! Please R&R.


The moonlight flooded in from the window and gave the floor a white-blueish tint. The night was silent; all he could hear was his own, slow breathing.

Jack sat on his bed. Looking up, he could see that Rudy and Cecilia were sleeping peacefully. Both of them seemed to be having a dream. He smirked. A side of him reminded him of his 'jealousy,' how he'd rarely dream anymore... Sometimes he could remember images, but it would never be anything coherent. Nothing was solid or coherent. It didn't frighten, anger or sadden him in anyway; he just wished he could dream a clear dream.

Then he remembered something Hanpan once told him. 'Humans always dream when they sleep, they just don't always remember them.' Right. Okay.

Thinking of which, Jack glanced over his shoulder. His furry partner was curled into a little blue ball next to his pillow. He sure looked comfortable, he noted. It was quiet, but he knew that when he'd lie down with his head on the pillow, he could hear Hanpan's breathing right next to his head if he listened carefully. He also noted that sometimes it would sound more like a purr. Smirking, he wondered if his companion really was a rat and not a cat instead.

Sighing, the man lifted his feet from the floor and rotated to lie down. He stared at the ceiling... a very typical ceiling; it was as though every ceiling in every inn was the same.

_What am I thinking? Ceilings?_ Jack shook his head against his pillow. _I must be tired. My thoughts are so boring nowadays._

Nowadays...

_So were my thoughts not so boring at some point before in my life?_

He reeled the memories in his mind, present to past.

_Saving the planet... Not sure how that can be 'fun,' given the circumstances, but it certainly wasn't boring either._

_Flying in an aircraft... Nope, not so fun, not when you start feeling sick after ten minutes._

_The Ruin Festival!... That started out kind of fun, I guess, but thinking of what happened afterward... no._

_Treasure hunting... Treasure is always fun, but getting ambushed by monsters or having ruins cave in on you isn't as much..._

Jack raked his brain. His memory would get fuzzy sometimes. Like when he had met Hanpan - it seemed like so long ago, it was all just a blur now. And before that...

Snow...

A fortress built around a castle...

Armors and weapons...

A certain redhaired woman...

Fire...

... The name Garrett Stampede...

... The ribbon.

He sat up and undid the knot in his ribbon, thus letting his hair down. He lied back down with the ribbon in his hand. Holding it above his face, he stared at it. Hey, it sure beats staring at the ceiling.

A fine, green silk ribbon. He had it for he didn't know how many years. Two? Three? Longer? He forgot. But he did not forget how he got it.

Jack had been using it as a means to tie his hair for a while... Before his hair was long enough to do so, he had kept it safely close to his heart... Before that, he had it tied around his arm when he was wounded... And before that... Before that... It belonged to her...

Closing his fist around the ribbon, he held it down against his heart, closed his eyes and lost himself in his thoughts.

xXx

_AU: Rofl, oh God. I haven't written anything in like... more than a year, not to mention looked at It took me a few hours before remembering how the controls worked._

_Now, ahem, the story. In the past year slash two years, I've been in a huge Wild ARMs hype, and I had been wanting to write something about the first game. (I have all five games right now :D ... First one beaten, right before the last bosses in all the others. Divine Weapon sucks.) I took a great liking to Jack and Lady Harken's characters - so, I thought, why not write something about them? I had plans for a story for a while but never got around to writing it. Well, it just started now, because I'm actually sort of getting off my lazy bum. I don't know how long this will be, but surely (if I actually remember to keep writing, -.-) there will be a few chapters. But for now, there's just this short, sad excuse for a prologue here._

_Oh yes, do please R&R. :P (I hate how they keep removing the text seperation markers.)_


End file.
